Anisotropic Spin-Acoustic Resonance in Silicon Carbide at Room Temperature.

We report on acoustically driven spin resonances in atomic-scale centers in silicon carbide at room temperature. Specifically, we use a surface acoustic wave cavity to selectively address spin transitions with magnetic quantum number differences of ±1 and ±2 in the absence of external microwave electromagnetic fields. These spin-acoustic resonances reveal a nontrivial dependence on the static magnetic field orientation, which is attributed to the intrinsic symmetry of the acoustic fields combined with the peculiar properties of a half-integer spin system. We develop a microscopic model of the spin-acoustic interaction, which describes our experimental data without fitting parameters. Furthermore, we predict that traveling surface waves lead to a chiral spin-acoustic resonance that changes upon magnetic field inversion. These results establish silicon carbide as a highly promising hybrid platform for on-chip spin-optomechanical quantum control enabling engineered interactions at room temperature.

Acoustically driven arrayed waveguide grating.

We demonstrate compact tunable phased-array wavelength-division multiplexers driven by surface acoustic waves (SAWs) in the low GHz range. The devices comprise two couplers, which respectively split and combine the optical signal, linked by an array of single-mode waveguides (WGs). Two different layouts are presented, in which multi-mode interference couplers or free propagating regions were separately employed as couplers. The multiplexers operate on five equally distributed wavelength channels, with a spectral separation of 2 nm. A standing SAW modulates the refractive index of the arrayed WGs. Each wavelength component periodically switches paths between the output channel previously asigned by the design and the adjacent channels, at a fixed applied acoustic power. The devices were monolithically fabricated on (Al,Ga)As. A good agreement between theory and experiment is achieved.

High-frequency acoustic charge transport in GaAs nanowires.

The oscillating piezoelectric fields accompanying surface acoustic waves are able to transport charge carriers in semiconductor heterostructures. Here, we demonstrate high-frequency (above 1 GHz) acoustic charge transport in GaAs-based nanowires deposited on a piezoelectric substrate. The short wavelength of the acoustic modulation, smaller than the length of the nanowire, allows the trapping of photo-generated electrons and holes at the spatially separated energy minima and maxima of conduction and valence bands, respectively, and their transport along the nanowire with a well defined acoustic velocity towards indium-doped recombination centers.

Acoustically driven photon antibunching in nanowires.

The oscillating piezoelectric field of a surface acoustic wave (SAW) is employed to transport photoexcited carriers, as well as to spatially control exciton recombination in GaAs-based nanowires (NWs) on a subns time scale. The experiments are carried out in core-shell NWs transferred to a SAW delay line on a LiNbO(3) crystal. Carriers generated in the NW by a focused laser spot are acoustically transferred to a second location, leading to the remote emission of subns light pulses synchronized with the SAW phase. The dynamics of the carrier transport, investigated using spatially and time-resolved photoluminescence, is well-reproduced by computer simulations. The high-frequency contactless manipulation of carriers by SAWs opens new perspectives for applications of NWs in opto-electronic devices operating at gigahertz frequencies. The potential of this approach is demonstrated by the realization of a high-frequency source of antibunched photons based on the acoustic transport of electrons and holes in (In,Ga)As NWs.

Electrical suppression of spin relaxation in GaAs(111)B quantum wells.

Spin dephasing via the spin-orbit interaction (SOI) is a major mechanism limiting the electron spin lifetime in III-V zincblende quantum wells (QWs). The dephasing can be suppressed in GaAs(111) quantum wells by applying an electric field. The suppression has been attributed to the compensation of the intrinsic SOI associated with the bulk inversion asymmetry of the GaAs lattice by a structural induced asymmetry SOI term induced by an electric field. We provide direct experimental evidence for this mechanism by demonstrating the transition between the bulk inversion asymmetry-dominated to a structural induced asymmetry-dominated regime via photoluminescence measurements carried out over a wide range of applied fields. Spin lifetimes exceeding 100 ns are obtained near the compensating electric field, thus making GaAs(111) QWs excellent candidates for the electrical storage and manipulation of spins.

Quantum magnetic deflagration in acetate.

We report controlled ignition of magnetization reversal avalanches by surface acoustic waves in a single crystal of acetate. Our data show that the speed of the avalanche exhibits maxima on the magnetic field at the tunneling resonances of Mn(12). Combined with the evidence of magnetic deflagration in Mn(12) acetate, this suggests a novel physical phenomenon: deflagration assisted by quantum tunneling.